Getting stung by a fire ant hurts. Getting stung by a tarantula hawk hurts much, much more. But how much more does it hurt, exactly? And where does something like a honey bee rank on the pain scale?

For decades, answers to questions like these have been found by referencing the Schmidt pain index, a scale first developed and published in 1984 thanks to the self-sacrificing work of entomologist Justin O. Schmidt. The index seeks to rank the painfulness of dozens of Hymenoptera stings across a four-point spectrum. Some of these insects even warrant their own verbal descriptions; and those descriptions, as you might expect, are pretty damn awesome.

Schmidt developed a scale from 0 to 4, in which 0 was defined as the sensation of being stung by an insect that cannot penetrate human skin to 2, a familiar intermediate pain (honey bee), to 4, an intensely painful sting such as that inflicted by Paraponera clavata.

The original scale, however, did not feature the "implausibly exact numbers" you see listed below. What's more, over the years, many of Schmidt's more measured, albeit still graphic, descriptions (he once likened the pain of a Pogonomyrmex badius sting to something that "might be caused by someone turning a screw into the flesh or ripping muscles and tendons") have given way to the... more colorful descriptions like the ones listed below.

Schmidt is quick to cede the point that the scale is obviously subjective, and lacks empirical basis — though, as Straight Dope's Cecil Adams points out: "if there's anyone equipped to expound on the fine points of pain, a guy who's been stung by 150 different species in his lifetime is probably it." What follows is "Justin O. Schmidt's Guide to Verminous Hurt," and while it was originally written by Outside Magazine's Katie Arnold, it was written under Schmidt's guidance, so make of that what you will. So without further ado:

Animal:Sweat beeSchmidt Index: 1.0Description: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.